Castle - tower house

The National Monuments Service's description

On the summit of a flat-topped ridge sloping very gently to the S, in a farmyard. A tower house (TS075-030001-) is visible c. 700m to the SW. Described in the Civil Survey (1654-6) as 'a ruinous castle with a bawne about it' and the proprietor in 1640 is listed as 'Sir Richard Butler of Knockytocher in the County of Kilkenny Baronett Irish Papist' (Simington 1931, vol.1, 322). This tower house (ext. dims. 8.8m E-W; int. dims. 7.3m N-S; 6.1m E-W; E wall T 0.85m) is built of limestone rubble, randomly coursed, with roughly cut quoins and a base-batter on the S and W walls (H 1m; Wth 0.4m), less pronounced on the N wall (Wth 0.19m; H 0.5m). The base of the N wall (T 1.67m) has clay and pebble mortar exposed, possibly repair as elsewhere the mortar is a hard lime and small pebble aggregate. The external E wall is almost entirely obscured by a house which has been built against this face. The N wall has largely collapsed, only a portion of the W end surviving, with modern render covering. The W wall is in good condition, with stables built up against it. No external features are visible in this wall, which has been limewashed and partly cement-plastered in the small tack-room at the N end. The cat-slide roof is roughly to the level of the base of the vault of the tower house. The tower house was entered at the N end of the E wall, but only the S jamb of the doorway survives. The internal lobby arrangement does not survive. A mural stairs rises in the E wall, with the lower steps modern, and possibly the entire stairs may be rebuilt as White's late 19th-century account states that there was no entrance or stairs surviving (1892, 64). The ground level is higher than originally, raised by collapsed masonry from the vault. The internal E face has been rendered. There are two large pointed-arch recesses in the S wall, one containing a blocked ogee-headed window and the other an inserted late 18th or 19th-century ope, brick lined and blocked up with stone. The first-floor was supported on wooden beams, with a pointed stone vault over but the N section has collapsed. There is a deep window embrasure in the centre of S wall, but the window is broken out. The second floor was accessed from a mural stair in the SE corner. There is a joggle-jointed, polished limestone fireplace in the centre of the W wall, and to N a splayed window embrasure with the window broken out. In the S end of the W wall there is a small broken-out window, only visible externally. In the S wall there is a narrow mural passage (Wth 0.6m) lit by two broken out windows, at the E and W ends. This mural passage may have been accessed from the main second floor chamber or from the mural stairs. The tower house above second-floor level has been levelled. There is no evidence of a garderobe chute.

Compiled by: Jean Farrelly

Date of upload: 07 April 2014

References

Simington, R.C. (ed.) 1931 The Civil survey, AD 1654-1656. Vol I: county of Tipperary: eastern and southern baronies. Dublin. Irish Manuscripts Commission.

White, J.D. 1892 Anthologia Tipperariensis. Cashel.